Familial risk in testicular cancer as a clue to a heritable and environmental aetiology

Abstract

We used the nation-wide Swedish Family-Cancer Database to examine the risk for testicular cancer in offspring through parental and sibling probands. Among 0-68-year-old offspring, 4082 patients had testicular cancer in years 1961-2000, among whom 68 (1.67%) had an affected father/brother. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) for familial risk were four-fold when a father and nine-fold when a brother had testicular cancer. Histology-specific risks (for the testicular cancer) were similar for sons of affected fathers, but were higher among brothers for teratoma and seminoma than for mixed histologies. Standardized incidence ratios for either histology depended on the age difference between the brothers: 10.81 when the age difference was less than 5 years compared to 6.69 for a larger age difference. Parental colorectal, pancreatic, lung and breast cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease were associated with seminoma among sons. Seminoma risk was also increased when a sibling had melanoma. Teratoma was associated with parental lung cancer and melanoma. The high familial risk may be the product of shared childhood environment and heritable causes. Familial cases of fraternal pairs with an early-onset teratoma represent a challenge for gene identification.

Figure 1

Age-specific incidence of testicular cancer in offspring according to the SNOMED histology in years 1993–2000.

Figure 2

Age-specific SIR for histological type of testicular cancer in the offspring of paternal and fraternal probands: (A) seminoma; (B) teratoma. The numbers of cases are shown for each age group. ^* Shows that the 95% CI for the SIR did not include 1.00.